In 2009, Get together Down felt like lightning in a bottle: an ensemble comedy starring among the heaviest hitters within the business, created by Veronica Mars genius Rob Thomas (no, not that Rob Thomas), alongside John Enbom, Dan Etheridge, and Paul Rudd (sure, that Paul Rudd). The present, which ran for 2 seasons on Starz, instructed the story of a bunch of cater waiters in Los Angeles, budding, embittered inventive sorts struggling to make ends meet in a city that hates them. You had a pre-Parks and Recreation Adam Scott, with a post-Imply Ladies Lizzy Caplan, alongside pre-Silicon Valley Martin Starr and post-Veronica Mars Ryan Hansen, to not point out a pre-Glee Jane Lynch and perpetual genius (and former member of The State) Ken Marino.
Get together Down gained a devoted cult following, however ended its run prematurely as its expertise obtained scooped up elsewhere. I recollect it being what felt like an ingenious discovery within the early days of streaming: my school housemates and I had by no means seen a sitcom that felt so in tune with our referential, foolish humorousness. It helped, too, that Get together Down was not too plot-driven — just like the sitcom days of yore, it was largely in regards to the vibes and the office, every episode centered on a distinct occasion. We not often, if ever, noticed the Get together Down crew out of labor, negating their existence exterior of their menial jobs. That is the nervousness for a lot of within the service business: steadily degraded and sometimes underpaid, these employees worry that their prospects — their impolite, insane, demanding prospects — won’t ever see them as something greater than that. Get together Down’s ragtag group of caterers have been delusional in their very own sense, however by no means crazier than any of the individuals they labored for.
The present is now again for a restricted six-episode run on Starz after years of fan-led canvassing. This has typically been a response to Thomas’ work, as Veronica Mars ultimately parlayed itself right into a fan-funded film a number of years after its preliminary run (and later, a Hulu revival of its personal). In some ways, it looks like the right time for a present like Get together Down to return; in spite of everything, who has been within the throes of society’s ugliest conversations or worse situations over the previous few years than meals service employees? However the brand new Get together Down episodes, maybe to their detriment, solely wish to take care of the COVID of all of it to a level. The primary new episode serves as a prologue to the sequence, set in March 2020 and stuffed with “2020 is gonna be my yr” altruisms. If solely they knew! However later episodes glide proper over the pandemic nearly totally.
Since we final noticed them, Marino’s Ron is constructing out his Get together Down catering service, with Roman (Starr) as considered one of few remaining staff underneath his tenure. Henry (Scott) is now a highschool trainer, married to an off-screen lady with some off-screen youngsters. He’s classically depressing, each to have given up on his performing dream and likewise as a result of he’s all the time like that. Caplan’s Casey doesn’t return for these new episodes, although she’s by no means removed from Henry’s thoughts: an SNL solid member and a tabloid fixture, we’re all the time listening to about her on the information. Lydia (Lynch) and Constance (Megan Mullally) are again, the previous newly married to a wealthy older man and the latter nonetheless hyperfocused on her daughter Escapade’s profession. The season premiere is nearly a stand-alone expertise, a prologue, so to talk, because the gang reunites to have fun Kyle (Hansen), who has simply been solid as “Nitromancer” in some new massive superhero slop, primed to make it massive.
One thing all the time goes fallacious at a Get together Down get together: embittered about his forthcoming fame, a member of Kyle’s previous band Karma Rocket leaks footage of Kyle singing their tune “My Battle,” which is rife with unintentional references to the Holocaust. This might be a humorous and stunning reveal, if solely longtime followers didn’t keep in mind that “My Battle” was already a major a part of the season’s first run. Kyle’s insistence that it’s all a coincidence — that the references to being “placed on a prepare” and “assigned a quantity” are about Hollywood — is humorous, if not acquainted. With Kyle as soon as once more working at Get together Down, quickly to be adopted by Henry, the gang is now again to their previous catering gigs, like nothing ever modified.
In truth, lots of the new episodes of Get together Down really feel acquainted, the present content material to play the hits a dozen or so years since their first play. The group caters a freaky neo-conservative occasion within the third episode, “First Annual PI2A Symposium,” that harkens again to the primary season’s “California Faculty Conservative Union Caucus.” There’s an prolonged mushroom journey within the fourth episode, “KSGY-95 Prizewinner’s Luau,” that harkens again to the primary season’s “Sin Say Shun Awards Afterparty.” The rampant familiarity of those new episodes is each a characteristic and a bug. At its finest, Get together Down spun its wheels: The entire joke was that these individuals have been by no means going to go anyplace or do something, and their striving is one thing to be mocked. Their anxieties — not adequate, not scorching sufficient, not competent sufficient to run a Soup’r Crackers — have been uncovered again and again to the advantage of solely their prospects. It was darkish, irritating, and ruthlessly humorous. However the brand new episodes are much less centered on the monotony of the work, too full of loosely linked plottiness and a halfhearted try to make enjoyable of how Hollywood is now. Issues have modified, however additionally they haven’t; extra of the identical doesn’t essentially suggest sharper commentary.
Partially, that’s as a result of a handful of the brand new characters launched by the present: Sackson (Tyrel Jackson Williams) and Lucy (Zoë Chao) are latest Get together Down hires, the previous a “content material creator” and the latter a nouveau gastronomy sort. Although Williams is high-energy and undeniably humorous, Get together Down doesn’t have all that a lot to say about the truth that being on TikTok is a job aside from “Isn’t that loopy?” and “Aren’t the dances so silly?” There’s a tacit acceptance that posting is, for some, labor, with little extra investigation than that (together with the oft-mentioned however not often mentioned indisputable fact that Roman is now a YouTuber, apparently). Lucy, equally, feels one-note and noticed, a gourmand looking for an viewers who will recognize her disgusting, avant-garde delicacies. Each episode she conjures up a brand new gross deal with, solely to really feel dejected when Ron scolds her for forgoing cake pops or no matter trite meals is required of them.
Each Williams and Chao convey a enjoyable vitality to the group and it’s good to see the present make an try to diversify its in any other case very white solid, nevertheless it’s clear the writers aren’t positive enmesh them with the returning solid. Get together Down can’t resolve if being a full-time content material creator is a worthy job, nor can it decide how an individual with integrity in meals service may very well be a caterer (although there are many TikTok-famous private cooks doing OK in Los Angeles, in line with my feed). The jokes in Get together Down have been much less in regards to the nature of the job itself and extra the ambition that drives it, nevertheless it’s laborious to see why both Sackson or Lucy have wound up with this gig they really feel is beneath them.
The opposite vital addition to the present is Evie (Jennifer Garner), a hotshot producer who takes an curiosity in Henry. Get together Down doesn’t need Garner to take over for Caplan, however she’s a troublesome match throughout the solid. Garner is a sport and keen performer — I’m by no means mad to see her present up — however an odd match with the ever-sardonic Scott. It’s laborious to know the place their storyline goes, having solely seen the primary 5 of six episodes, and figuring out Get together Down’s oft-sadistic tone, it’s possible nowhere good. However her inclusion is proof that the sequence is extra intent on commenting on Hollywood, the merciless, informal indifference of the business, than it’s its meals service employees. To not point out, the dynamic between Evie and Henry is basically, regrettably, fairly boring.
That the present skips from March 2020 to someday within the late summer time or early fall of 2021 overlooks a lot of the roughest components of the pandemic for employees, solely ever making notice that Ron labored via it, affected by COVID a number of instances, his numerous negative effects popping up when most comically efficient (and in Marino’s fingers, very a lot so). Get together Down was by no means strictly Hollywood or service business commentary, however its return is so steeped within the unfairness and inequity of an ever-similar Hollywood that it forgets an business that was wholly ruptured over the previous few years. That the brand new episodes really feel so much like the previous ones will not be a disappointment as a result of we glance to the present for embittered catharsis, nevertheless it’s not telling us something a few flawed business put wholly on show for its savagery for the reason that present first went off the air. If comedy on the whole “hits completely different” in a post-pandemic world, why lean into such acquainted beats?
In a crowded panorama of reboots and revivals, the brand new Get together Down episodes are neither the worst of the worst nor the perfect of the perfect. That is nonetheless top-of-the-line casts in ages, stuffed with performers who haven’t misplaced their edge. Marino, particularly, is a welcome presence within the tv panorama, one of the adept, manic, and unique comedic actors of a era. Ron Donald, too, is a creation for the ages. I may watch him scream eternally, and a part of what I noticed watching this newest season is that he in all probability will. These new episodes will delight those that have missed the undeniably entertaining, inane pitter-patter of the present. That was the key to Get together Down the present and Get together Down the corporate: This work was all the time alleged to be a filler job for these characters, keen to maneuver on to one thing else. That these characters stay caught in a revival, shiny and shiny and low-cost and depressing, feels just like the type of factor the unique Get together Down can be content material to skewer. That the world round Get together Down appears simply as bleak and unforgiving because it did a dozen or so years in the past will not be their fault; the definition of madness is doing the identical factor again and again, hoping for a distinct outcome.